The Rival
by ixaquasa
Summary: As the sun rises, so does the moon set.


Experimental one-shot, this is. It could be due to: a) me being bored, b) reading a lot of Dim Aldebaran's work lately, or c) reading too much Plath. Either way, here goes...

Verses quoted here are from Plath's poem, _The Rival_.

Many thanks to the beta! :)

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the characters - Colfer does. Sylvia Plath owns the poem.

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The Rival

**i.**

_If the moon smiled, she would resemble you._

Here, out in the semi-darkness of the night, Holly knew that the less she said, the more he would understand what she meant. The full moon called to her, beguiling her to join the ancient Ritual of the People, but she resisted for the moment. There would be time enough for her to complete the Ritual before she returned belowground to Haven.

But for now, it was enough that she remained silent. And so she did, her lips pressed tightly together against the winter chill.

'Cold?' he said, tightening his arm around her shoulders. 'I brought an extra blanket in case you needed it.'

'It's okay, thanks,' she said, bowing her head. Her breath came in a white mist before her eyes, obscuring her vision.

He laughed and squeezed her icy hand. 'It's all right if you want to head back soon.'

'No.' She shook her head and shut her eyes. _He's not here yet._

'Why this place?' said the elf. 'We could have gone to Tara. You nearly froze on the way here!'

'I said it's okay,' she insisted. 'You can go back first if you want.'

'Nah, I don't want to.' He sighed happily and looked up at the moon. 'Look at that – I can see the Man in the Moon. He looks like he's smiling, doesn't he?'

'He looks sad,' she said critically.

'That's what I thought too,' he said. 'I've always wondered why.'

_Me too._

And then the familiar silence, as they kept their thoughts from each other.

'Isn't this the place where he abducted you?' he said, abruptly breaking the quiet.

'What?' Her tone was suitably surprised, but she knew that she wasn't fooling him with it.

'He kidnapped you here,' he said, narrowing his eyes. 'Why are we here tonight, Holly?'

'I have my reasons.'

'You should have told me.'

She stayed silent after that. Holly knew, as she did at any other time, that the less she said, the more he would understand what she meant. But what she meant wasn't what he wanted to hear, so he shut out the words and made his own.

She didn't blame him for it. She would have done the same if she could.

**ii.**

_You leave the same impression_

_Of something beautiful, but annihilating._

She could hardly call him beautiful, because his looks certainly didn't adhere to the standard rules of masculine beauty or her idea of a good-looking male.

Besides, calling him 'beautiful' would probably the last word she ever said to him – if she had dared to in the first place – before he laughed in her face. Not to mention that the idea itself was achingly ridiculous, even in the privacy of her own mind.

He was unconventionally attractive, maybe, with that indefinable charisma of his – but no, he wasn't beautiful. He couldn't be, after what he did.

What was that word Trouble had used after the fiasco – oh yes, 'annihilation'. That word described him – Artemis – annihilating.

He broke the rules of the silent game he played with the People, and now nobody was playing fair.

But there had been a certain dark beauty to the flames and smoke Holly had seen rising from the burning fairy forts. She had hoarded the memory to herself ever since, slowly picking through the details of the destruction that Artemis had orchestrated. Holding on to what was not meant to be hers, deciphering clues for messages that he never intended to send, keeping the evidence from the ones who asked her for it – and all because of one boy.

And behind everything she remembered – the bloody light from the fire, the destruction of centuries-old fairy forts, the widespread panic and anger – there was the moon above, looking down on everything like a benign observer.

It was the one detail she kept returning to, over and over, and in the moonlight she would see the tall thin figure standing in the darkness beside her.

**iii.**

_Both of you are great light borrowers._

'The light from the moon cannot be said to come from the moon itself,' he said, his voice a gentle murmur in her ear.

'Shut up, Artemis.' She buried her face in his shoulder and sighed. So much for aimless chatting.

'It's true,' he continued, smiling down at her. 'We see the moon because light from the sun is reflected off its surface – '

'Just shut _up_,' she groaned, banging her forehead playfully against his shoulder. Alas, his shoulder was bony – she wouldn't be surprised if there was a bruise on her forehead in the morning. It had been months since she did the Ritual.

'Holly.' His tone was serious, at odds with the smile he was giving her. 'Do you think I'm doing enough?'

'What do you mean?' She rested her chin on his shoulder and grinned up at him.

'I mean…the projects. The little successes and prizes. Recognition and fame. Do you think I'm doing enough?'

'You've been helping us a lot,' she replied. 'And that's enough.'

'But I owe it to the People. My inventions, my knowledge of the possibilities in human technology – they were possible because of what I know about your people.'

'And is that wrong?'

'No. It isn't.'

'So what's the matter?' she said.

'I'm borrowing someone else's limelight.' He frowned and nodded at the moon. 'Like she is.'

**iv.**

_Her O-mouth grieves at the world; yours is unaffected,_

A slap to his cheek, but it was the blankness in his eyes that cut her up the most.

'Is this how you repay us?' she said, her voice trembling with anger. 'By burning our terminals? And threatening to expose us to your people?'

'I have no part in that last accusation,' he said coolly. He raised a hand to his cheek and touched the skin tenderly.

'I'm not sorry for that,' she said. 'I thought we could trust you.'

'You can.' The blank look remained in his eyes. 'You should.'

'You're not sorry for the recent casualties, are you?'

'To be honest, I'm not.'

'I thought as much.'

**v.**

_And your first gift is making stone out of everything._

There had been a kiss – stolen, uncalled for, unexpected – and then she knew that this was as far as she could go.

He never spoke of it, and she didn't have the nerve to bring it up; they danced carefully around each other for months after that, ever polite and conscientiously friendly to each other.

But they knew better.

**vi.**

_I wake to a mausoleum; you are here,_

_Ticking your fingers on the marble table, looking for cigarettes,_

'Since when did you smoke?' she asked, watching the thin, wavering tendrils climb towards the ceiling of the library at Fowl Manor.

'A while,' he replied, taking a drag on the cigarette.

'You're lying,' she said simply. It was so easy for her to rise from her seat and take the cigarette out of his fingers; he didn't even move away from her hand when she raised it to hit him.

'I suppose you know me better.' He sat immovably in his chair, watching as Holly went to the open window and threw the cigarette out into the night.

'You're still a child, Artemis,' she said grimly. 'I know it's been hard for you, with Butler gone – '

'His death doesn't affect me.' His voice was harsh; she would call it defensive if she hadn't known better that Artemis was anything but that. 'He did his job well.'

'You're lying again.' She wanted to shake him, to _make_ him admit that he was hurting from Butler's absence.

'Try me.' He tapped his fingers on the marble table beside his chair, playing a tune only he could hear. 'Make me admit it.'

'What do you mean?' she snapped.

'I know why you're here,' he said. 'You came because you thought I needed support. The truth is, Holly, I don't need your help.'

'Then why haven't you left this room for a week?' she demanded. 'Your parents left with your brothers to give you space, but you've hardly spoken to them since Butler went. Why is that?'

'Perhaps you can give me the answer.' _Tap tap_, went his fingers. A tune in his head – maybe it was a funereal dirge, or a stately march, as befitting the bodyguard who had saved him from danger so many times in the past – who knew what music that Artemis listened to in the silence of an empty house?

'Cigarettes,' she said in disgust, tossing the half-empty packet onto the table beside Artemis' hand. 'You didn't smoke them, Artemis. I know. You've been watching the smoke – '

'And is that wrong?' he asked.

'It's not that,' she replied hesitantly. 'It's just that…I want to help you, and you're not letting me.'

'So don't.'

**vii.**

_Spiteful as a woman, but not so nervous,_

_And dying to say something unanswerable._

Watching, watching – blue and hazel eyes watching the ones that mirrored them.

A game they played without speaking of the rules – she knew she couldn't; shouldn't; wouldn't – but it would take too much from her to stop.

'You didn't tell them,' he said.

'I didn't want to.'

'Thank you.'

She smiled at him, briefly.

'Do they know you're here?'

Of course they didn't, not when she didn't want them to see her like this, speaking to a human like she would to a friend.

'It's the death penalty for any fairy found collaborating with humans,' he said with a smirk. 'How ironic.'

'Do you think so?'

'Why are you doing this, Holly?'

'It's not over yet.'

'You're not answering my question,' he said. 'Why are you doing this for me?'

'Can't you answer it for yourself?'

'I'm not going to tell you about my plans, if that's what you want.'

'I didn't think you would,' she said.

**viii.**

_The moon, too, abases her subjects,_

There was no logic to this, no reason that she could ascribe to her actions – she was doing the same things for him, again and again, without knowing why she was.

A messenger: one for her own, one for him – she was a veritable Mata Hari, as he told her during one of their clandestine meetings. 'Eye of the day', so the meaning went for the name, _matahari_ being the word for the sun in the Malay language.

'A joke, I suppose,' he said, 'because the moon is a light borrower, is she not?'

'I can't see what's funny,' she said. Her finger traced the burn on his wrist, blue sparks flowing from her fingertip into his skin in a thin stream. 'I told you not to attack the forts last week.'

'I have my contacts.' He traced the scar on her trigger finger with his own. 'I changed my plans.'

She took her hand away from his wrist. 'What do you mean?'

'I'll need your help next.'

'I'm not going to help you to destroy more fairy forts, Artemis.' She clenched her teeth and got up from the seat she had shared with him. 'So many fairies have been injured.'

'Because of you,' he said.

'No,' she retorted, and pointed a finger accusingly at him. 'It was you, Artemis. Your plans never take into account that people will get hurt.'

'Believe me when I said it was because of you.' He held up his hands, his palms turned towards her. 'I wouldn't have put my plans into action if you hadn't helped me with the intelligence.'

'So it's my fault then,' she whispered. 'You're putting the blame on me.'

'Maybe.'

**viv.**

_But in the daytime she is ridiculous._

She held his face between her hands for the last time before he entered the shuttle. Bright morning light, mocking the unshed tears in her eyes – she held them back, out of pride, out of fear, because they were for him only.

'In the end, you know where your loyalties lie,' he said, not meeting her gaze.

'I'm so sorry,' she said. 'You were getting out of hand.'

'Does it matter now?' He gave a bitter laugh and stepped away from her. 'Thank _you_, Holly.'

The shuttle descended with a barely audible hiss. Holly tipped back her head and blinked back the tears, willing them not to show themselves.

In the pale blue expanse of the sky above, the moon was a pale silver disc, ghostly and weak in the sunlight of the new day. _Eye of the day_ – of course, she should have known earlier. Now there was nothing left for her to do.

**x.**

_Your dissatisfactions, on the other hand,_

_Arrive through the mailslot with loving regularity,_

_White and blank, expansive as carbon monoxide._

1: Thank you, Holly, for the package. It was extremely thoughtful of you.

2: I couldn't have put it better myself. I'm doing fine in prison, thank you.

3: I would appreciate it if you stopped writing to me, Captain Short. The Lower Elements Police do not think our correspondence should continue in the future. But it is, I'm afraid, on your own initiative that we should stop communicating with each other.

4: No, Holly. Please stop writing to me.

5: Suffocating? Did you think I asked for this?

6: _I have been half in love with easeful Death._

7: If all goes well, the Council will schedule my trial for next month. And so our correspondence will stop here, Holly. Be well.

**xi.**

_No day is safe from news of you,_

_Walking about in Africa maybe, but thinking of me._

8: The verdict has been given, Holly. I hope your mission goes well; you won't read this until it's over. This is the last message I'm allowed to give to you. I hope you'll do the honour of informing my parents of my absence. A favour I will not be able to repay – will you do it for me, Holly?

Yours sincerely, Artemis Fowl the Second

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**A/N:** 'I have been half in love with easeful Death' is from Keats' _Ode to a Nightingale._ The one line that sticks in my mind, for some reason I can't say.

Question: Are we allowed to post poems still under copyright in full here? I just found out about the ban on songfics, being a newbie in this fandom, ouch.

So...what do you think of the story? (Oh, the angst!)


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